The fiber broadband provider said traffic was immediately shifted to alternative routes, primarily through the new Bifrost Cable System, following the disruption on Friday.
Some customers experienced difficulty accessing applications and websites hosted in Singapore, but Converge said the rerouting resulted in little to no disruption to its services.
“This allowed none to minimal disruption in our services to both our residential and enterprise customers due to the cable issue between Singapore and the Philippines,” Converge CEO Dennis Anthony Uy said.
Backup routes
Uy said the company began planning investments in additional international cable systems five years ago to prepare for potential disruptions.
“We have planned our investments in these international cable systems as early as five years ago precisely in anticipation of these incidents,” he said.
Converge has invested in Bifrost and the Southeast Asia-Hainan-Hong Kong Express Cable, or SEA-H2X, to provide alternative routes for its international data traffic.
Spanning more than 20,000 kilometers, the trans-Pacific Bifrost system connects the Philippines with Singapore, Indonesia, Guam and the United States. It has a total design capacity of more than 240 terabits per second.
Converge serves as the Philippine landing party through its cable landing station in Davao and owns one fiber pair in the system's trunk.
SEA-H2X, meanwhile, spans about 6,000 kilometers and connects Hong Kong, Hainan, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. The system has a design capacity exceeding 200 Tbps and lands in La Union.
Rising demand
Uy said the additional capacity provided by the two systems had strengthened the redundancy of Converge's international network.
He said demand for international data capacity was expected to continue growing alongside increased adoption of artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
“With the current high demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing, international data traffic will just continue to rise,” Uy said.
Converge said it would continue investing in international cable systems and data centers as part of its plan to strengthen connectivity and position the Philippines as a digital gateway between Asia and other markets. —Ed: Corrie S. Narisma
